Nice Day for Murder

A collection of poems for one of Hollywood’s great actors, Jimmy Cagney, best known for his ­gangster films of the 1930s. Nice Day for Murder takes a Tommy gun to ­contemporary notions of poetry and feminism.

In his gangster films, Jimmy Cagney mashes fruit into the face of his love interests, snaps wet towels at them, kicks the chair from under them and otherwise abuses them, and they always come back for more. Women take the fruit and the towels back in these poems, exploring the dangerous liberation and erotic appeal that violence can possess for women. Lines begin to blur between fiction and reality as the narrative confuses Cagney's street-tough persona with his gentle off-screen demeanor.